Narrating the World with Broadcastr

There’s a passage in Don DeLillo’s Americana where he describes walking down a busy sidewalk among a throng of New Yorkers. He captured this feeling with such perfect articulation that now I think about the sentences every time I pass through Times Square.

Thanks to Broadcastr, anyone can experience this sensation in real-time. Visiting Rockefeller Center? Use the Broadcastr app to hear Joey Berglund’s impressions from Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom.

Think of it as an audio walking tour with contemporary literature as your guide. The project is run by Andy Hunter and Scott Lindenbaum, the guys behind Electric Literature. I’m excited to see how the app evolves as more people use it and upload their own passages. We’ll be adding more New York passages soon, with other cities to follow. In addition to Freedom, you can at present visit Washington Square through Michael Cunningham’s The Hours and Sunset Park through Paul Auster’s Sunset Park (naturally).